Socialites in Borrowed Clothing? Quick, Take a Photograph

THIS week, a few days before the Winter Wonderland Ball at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx on Friday, Tinsley Mortimer will go to pick out her dress. One of six junior chairwomen of the party, Ms. Mortimer will not be visiting Bergdorf Goodman or Saks Fifth Avenue; she will drop by the showroom of Paco Rabanne to chose a dress from the spring collection designed by Patrick Robinson, which will be lent to her for the night.

Since her marriage three years ago to Robert L. Mortimer, an executive at a private investment group, Ms. Mortimer, 29, has become ubiquitous on the circuit of charity dinners, luncheons and boutique openings in New York. A search of the Web site New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com) brings back 82 hits, mostly party photos, including one from August with a caption calling her the "glam girl of the moment."

With her cascade of blond hair and lithe figure, Ms. Mortimer, a former event planner, attracts the cameras, a fact not lost on fashion designers, who have lined up to lend her dresses, knowing that the photos that appear in newspapers and magazines bring valuable publicity.

As a pro at this game Ms. Mortimer expects the whole visit to Paco Rabanne -- including a seamstress's alteration of the dress she picks -- to be quicker than a pit stop at Barneys New York. "I'm pretty aware of what looks good on me," she said, "so it usually only takes me 30 to 40 minutes to find a dress."

It used to be that philanthropically inclined young women like Ms. Mortimer, who is on the fund-raising committees of seven charities and cultural institutions, bought their own gowns for the seasonal galas.

But now many designers lend the gowns in a Manhattan version of the wooing of actresses to serve as clothes hangers on the red carpets of Hollywood.

"It's a courtship," said Tracy Paul, a publicist for the designer Rena Lange, who recently donated $15,000 to a socially popular charity, New Yorkers for Children, and gave a luncheon in her showroom for which the designer supplied outfits to seven members of the charity's benefit committee. "These women attend events and are photographed," Ms. Paul explained. "When they wear your clothes, it's an endorsement."

Of course the women also get something out of the arrangement. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to don a $10,000 riot of chiffon straight off the runway rather than the trusty black column that you've worn before? If wearing next season's prettiest and most expensive frocks can get a socialite's picture in Vogue and inch her way to a spot on some best-dressed list, all the better. That way, other designers will be eager to lend her clothes.

There was a time when society style leaders didn't borrow their glad rags. Nan Kempner, a celebrated fashion star, was known to wear a favorite suit or coat as many as four times a season, saying she felt no shame being photographed in the same outfit more than once. She said you should always wear a dress at least twice, so people knew you hadn't borrowed it.

"These women don't pay for their clothes, and it effects whether or not you can call them best dressed," said David Patrick Columbia, the sharp-tongued author of the social diary Web site. "The girls today are basically shills."

But to hear many of them tell it, there is no longer any stigma attached to having a designer dressing you like a mannequin. On the contrary, it can be an honor. "If someone calls you," said Annelise Peterson, a publicist for Calvin Klein who is also socially visible in New York, "and says 'Hey, will you grab a dress from Zac Posen,' it's so flattering. It means you're a tastemaker, you're special."

If that's true, there will be a lot of special women at the Neue Galerie New York on Thursday night.

Gucci is the major underwriter of the museum's winter gala and has offered to dress all eight co-chairwomen from its latest collection, including Lauren du Pont, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, Jane Lauder and Renée Rockefeller.

It has become standard practice for chairwomen on a benefit committee to wear dresses made by the designer sponsoring the event, a practice that many women say they regard as one of their party duties. "It's our thank you to the designer for hosting the event," said Susan Shin, a marketing consultant who is on the board of many charities. "We feel like it's our responsibility to support the designers who are helping the causes we care about."

As fashion houses have replaced banks as the major underwriters for some of the city's most chic galas over the last five years, the charity ball circuit, once a platform for individual style and sartorial creativity, has been turned into one long fashion show.

"Basically the social girls are indirect models of the clothes," said Zani Gugelmann, a jewelry designer and young woman about town. "Designers say this person has the right look, she's the right size, and the designer puts them in a certain dress. Then the photographers are told that so-and-so is wearing their clothes, and they take her picture."

When Chanel sponsored a fund-raiser for the Museum of the City of New York in February 2003, the event's chairwomen wore dresses from -- who else? -- Chanel. When J. Mendel sponsored the Frick Collection's Young Fellows Ball last February, the committee turned up in gowns fresh off the designer's showroom racks. Bill Blass, Nina Ricci and Alberta Ferretti have all staged their own red-carpet runways at New York fund-raisers for cultural institutions. Ferretti actually made 11 silver blue and silky white dresses, each valued at about $4,000, for the co-chairwomen of last year's Botanical Garden Winter Wonderland Ball.

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Most of the time, however, designers don't make unique dresses for socialites. Instead they might ask the women to select from the next season's collection. Should a photograph of one of the women wearing the showroom samples appears in, say, Harper's Bazaar a few months later, it will run just as the clothes appear in stores.

Erin Lazard, a fashion consultant and a veteran of the charity circuit, explained the marketing impetus behind designers' seeming generosity. "So many girls want to look the way Lauren Davis looks. Or Alex Kramer or Marina Rust looks," said Ms. Lazard, naming several women who have recently served as chairwomen of New York fund-raisers. "They'll circle around the magazine and study it, and then they'll turn around and buy a dress for $5,000 or $10,000."

This is not to say that the sponsors of these balls do not care about the causes to which they are contributing. But fashion houses, in addition to supporting a cultural or civic institution, can align their name with some of the social circuit's most stylish women. Consider that Frank Zambrelli, the creative director for Judith Leiber, was able to turn a socialite-studded luncheon for the Guggenheim Museum into a 10-hour photo session for the accessories designer's 2003 ad campaign. "It was a way to portray the über-luxury of the brand," Mr. Zambrelli said. Oh, and each guest was offered a Judith Leiber bag.

Unlike Hollywood celebrities, known by millions, socialites offer the fashion house a more select kind of publicity. "For a long time we didn't do it," said Wanda McDaniel, the executive vice president for entertainment industry communications at Giorgio Armani, long involved with dressing stars for the Oscars. "But you can't ignore the New York version of the red carpet, which is much more socially driven."

"At some point," she added, "you run out of stars to dress."

Ms. Lazard explained how it works. "There's the head girls," she said, "usually the six chairs, or any celebrities that happen to be going to an event. They'll get to pick the best of the best. Then, if you are a very good friend of the designer or if you have a very good sense of style, they'll sort of get on the back of the train."

But why are wealthy social figures -- women who may fly on private jets and preside over Park Avenue apartments -- borrowing their attire? One reason, several of the women say, is their hectic social calendar.

"Think of how often these women go out," said Marina Rust Connor, a society regular and fashion writer. "They don't spend all their time shopping for evening gowns. But you can't just wear a safe little black dress, especially if the invitation calls for festive dressing."

Emilia Fanjul Pfeifler, a socialite and owner of a fashion public relations firm, said "If it's for some crazy party, and it's an over-the-top dress I know is going to be a one-season-wonder, I'm not going to go out and buy it."

Unlike Ms. Kempner, many of today's tastemakers seem less willing to be photographed in the same outfit twice. "In Nan's case the world was very different," explained Bettina Zilkha, the author of "Ultimate Style: The Best of the Best Dressed List" and a well-traveled social figure. "Fashion moved a lot more slowly. It's a changed world, especially here in New York. Once you're seen in certain things, you almost can't wear them again. People might say, 'Oh boy there she is in that same old dress.' "

Looking boring isn't the only pitfall that a socialite can stumble into. Celerie Kemble, an interior designer, says she once wore a dress to an event that changed shape over the course of the evening; another top had scratchy threading under the arm. "It's like I'm doing a test drive," said Ms. Kemble, who now laughs about the mishaps.

Dori Cooperman, a brunette globe-trotter, found herself tussling with a borrowed chiffon Dior gown last summer in St.-Tropez. The pink floor-length dress started to tear early in the evening, and by the end of the night she had run out of safety pins. So she covered up with a sweater and jacket.

What do designers say about getting damaged goods returned from a socialite? "It's to be expected," said Peter Som, who said he has found dirty hems and some ripped trains on sample clothes returned after an evening of wear.

But if ruining a gown doesn't lose a woman her borrowing privileges, rudeness will. "There was one girl who would borrow things and was so unbelievably rude," said Christian Leone, the publicity director of Alberta Ferretti. "She's banned."

Until, that is, she becomes a chairwoman of an important charity gala.